The present invention relates to a plant for processing reels of yarn and in particular dyeing.
In the prior art dyeing plants in which machines with vertical cylindrical containers receive the reels fitted on rods which are fastened to supports termed xe2x80x98material holdersxe2x80x99 positioned in the containers are known. The operator must therefore fit the reels on the rods in the material holders, fit the material holder in the machine, start the dyeing cycle, at the end of the cycle remove the material holder, withdraw the reels from the material holder, move them into centrifuging machines and then drying machines. For each operation the reels must be removed from the supports of the preceding machine and positioned on the supports of the following machine. This involves time consumption and the inconvenience of having to handle the wet reels. In addition, personnel are necessary at each machine to perform all the loading and unloading operations.
Automatic handling plants have been proposed such as in EP-A-0713936. The complexity of such plants was however excessive with high risk of jamming and failure. In addition the space occupied by such plants was very great. Further plants have been proposed (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,341,361 and EP-A-0468566), wherein a reels loading device can be grasped as a whole to be moved between the processing stations.
The general purpose of the present invention is to obviate the above mentioned inconveniences by making available a plant for processing yarns on reels which would allow automatic reel handling with low complexity and limited space occupied and costs.
In view of said purpose it was sought to provide in accordance with the present invention a reeled yarn dyeing and processing plant comprising at least one processing station with a processing device receiving reels stacked on vertical rods characterized in that the device has an upper opening for loading and unloading the reels and the vertical rods are engaged in a removable manner in seats in said device with there also being a rod-grasping unit movable vertically and horizontally to be arranged above the opening in the processing device to grasp the rods and hoist them with the reels thereon out of the device or insert them in place in the device.